Ready Aim Fire
by ALittleDarkInside
Summary: He never really thought he'd lose it all. Really, he'd just never thought that losing it all could mean losing one person. Short random drabble, one-shot for now. Warning for overuse of the word alcohol.


He never really thought he'd lose it all.

But sometimes that's not how life works. Sometimes life screws you over then leaves in the middle of the night because it's afraid of commitment.

_Wait…_no. That is most definitely not _Tony's _problem. Maybe every girl he's every slept with except one has that problem. But not him.

No, this is one of the times when _you_ screw yourself over and you have nobody else to blame.

This is one of the times that Tony drinks enough that even he wonders if it's a little too much. This is the one of times when he's drunk enough to actually worry about himself.

He chokes back a vaguely bitter laugh, ignoring the fact that he is in public and under the scrutiny of several bouncers that look more or less like gorillas. They've seen his drunken antics before, the chaos this oh-so-upstanding Avenger can cause when alcohol has removed any lingering inhibitions.

Not like those inhibitions were ever that strong, anyway.

But Tony, for once, has no intention of causing trouble. He is busy ripping a metaphorical Band-Aid off of a newly opened wound. He is busy trying to think the words she said only an hour previous.

Alcohol, for once, doesn't help the situation. He's reached the point where he's slurring even inside his own head.

* * *

Tony's brain never stops working. It's always planning, always plotting, always drawing schematics and calculating angles, always drawing designs and thinking of smartass comments that serve no purpose other than self-amusement.

But when he hears those two words—"it's over"—then, _then, _his brain stutters to a stop.

The plans for his next laptop fall away. He stutters as he never has before, stutters out one question that he'll regret for the rest of his life: "why?"

And Pepper answers. She tells him a whole list of reasons she's leaving, from the littlest things ("Your arc reactor bothers me at night") to bigger things ("I can't handle being committed to someone who might be at danger at any time"). She tells him the annoying habits, the narcissism, things he's heard before but have never really sunk in.

And oh, they sink in now. They sink in like knives.

* * *

When she's done with her long-winded breakup speech, she almost looks sorry. But it's hard to look truly apologetic when that light of apology is stained, too, with relief.

He hates that, to some degree, he can understand it.

* * *

He suspects, vaguely, that the team knows about his nervous breakdowns. They'd started treating him with kid gloves a few months ago, after his encounters with the Mandarin. Steve checks up on him occasionally, when he's brave enough to attempt some awkward small talk; even Natasha calls him up sometimes.

Tony knows they feel bad, that they're only doing this to make sure he hasn't gone off the deep end. But he doesn't confront them.

He'd never admit it to anybody, not Pepper, not Rhodey, not…um.

Not JARVIS? God. Things are really going downhill if the only one he can think of that's close to him is a freaking computer program.

Tony would never admit it, but he likes the kid gloves. He likes to think that maybe someone out there wants to check up on him once in a while. Old, truculent, slightly alcoholic him.

Slightly.

He throws back another gulp of some drink that tastes even worse than he feels. The bartender shoots him a pitying look, surreptitiously wiping up the puddle of scotch creeping slowly towards the edge of the bar.

Tony's throat burns. He's drunk enough that he doesn't care about the bartender's pity, or even the guilty, lust-filled look the man has as he glances at Pepper.

He really shouldn't care. He wasn't jealous when he had Pepper—so he shouldn't be jealous now that she's gone. He's been in this situation before, sitting alone at a bar, drinking alcohol until the bartender's conscience wins over his avarice.

But never quite like this. He's older now. Tony had actually been entertaining vague thoughts of the future, a practice he tried his best to avoid when he was younger.

He _had_ been cautiously wondering about what life would be like in another ten years or so—because he'd thought this time there was something to finally look forward to.


End file.
